Standards Development

Scope

This document specifies a method for the taxonomic identification of single crustaceans to the genus or species level using DNA barcoding. It allows the identification of a large number of commercially important crustacean species.

This method was validated on raw crustaceans. Laboratory experience indicates additional applicability to processed crustacean products, e.g. cold smoked, hot smoked, salted, frozen, cooked, fried and deep-fried samples.

The described method is usually unsuitable for the analysis of highly processed foods, e.g. tins of crustaceans, with highly degraded DNA where the fragment lengths are not sufficient for amplification of the targets. Furthermore, it is not applicable for complex seafood products containing mixtures of two or more crustacean species.

The identification of crustacean species is carried out by PCR amplification of either a shorter or longer segment of the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene, or a segment of the cytochrome c oxidase I gene (cox1, syn. COI) or any combination of the three markers, followed by sequencing of the PCR products and subsequent sequence comparison with entries in databases.

Purpose

Food safety is a key aspect in terms of consumer protection. In the last three decades, globalization has taken place in the trade of food. Seafood trade channels are becoming steadily longer and more complicated so that sophisticated traceability tools are needed to ensure food safety. Correct food labelling is a prerequisite to ensure safe seafood products and fair trade as well as to minimize illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Seafood products are increasingly being processed in export countries. That makes the identification of species by morphological characteristics impossible. The development of harmonized and standardized protocols for the authentication of curstacean products is necessary to establish reliable methods for the detection of potential food fraud.